An annual collection of the twenty best contemporary short stories selected by series editor Laura Furman from hundreds of literary magazines, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 is studded with extraordinary settings and characters- a teenager in survivalist Alaska, the seed keeper of a doomed Chinese village, a young woman trying to save her life in a Ukrainian internet cafe. Also included are the winning writers' comments on what inspired them, a short essay from each of the three eminent jurors, and an extensive resource list of literary magazines.
Introduction Laura Furman, Series Editor A Composer and His Parakeets Ha Jin, Zoetrope Other People's Deaths Lore Segal, The New Yorker Village 113 Anthony Doerr, Tin House A Change in Fashion Steven Millhauser, Harper's Magazine The Transitional Object Sheila Kohler, Boulevard On the Lake Olaf Olafsson, Zoetrope Taiping Brittani Sonnenberg, xconnect What Do You Want to Know For? Alice Munro, The American Scholar The Necessity of Certain Behaviors Shannon Cain, New England Review A Game of Cards Rose Tremain, The Paris Review Touch Alexi Zentner, Tin House Bad Neighbors Edward P. Jones, The New Yorker Every Move You Make David Malouf, Granta Scenes from the Life of the Only Girl in Water Shield, Alaska Tony Tulathimutte, The Threepenny Review The Bullock Run Roger McDonald, Mãnoa Prison Yiyun Li, Tin House Bye-bye Natalia Michel Faber, Granta Folie à Deux William Trevor, The New Yorker The Little Boy Mary Gaitskill, Harper's Magazine A Little History of Modern Music William H. Gass, Conjunctions Reading The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on “Touch” by Alexi Zenter David Leavitt on “What Do You Want to Know For?” by Alice Munro David Means on “Folie à Deux” by William Trevor Writing The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 The Writers on Their Work Recommended Stories 2008 Publications Submitted Permissions
Laura Furman's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, and other magazines. She is the founding editor of the highly regarded American Short Fiction (three time finalist for the American Magazine Award). A professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, she teaches in the graduate James A. Michener Center for writers. She lives in Austin.
Reviews for O. Henry Prize Stories 2008
Widely regarded as the nation's most prestigious awards for short fiction. --The Atlantic Monthly
